For the "wild things" at Maurice Sendak Elementary in North Hollywood, the passing of the school's namesake on Tuesday was particularly poignant.
Students at the school marked Sendak's death at age 83 with flower and hand-drawn cards.
The school, which opened in 2005, is named for the famed author of "Where the Wild Things Are."
The loss was personal for Mark Boland, a parent who has sent four children to the school and a lifelong Sendak fan. The news prompted Boland and three of his children to create a modest memorial at the school.
“It’s a sad day for my childhood and for my four kids who went to school there,” said the 52-year-old Boland, who read Sendak’s stories in his own youth.
Sendak, Boland said, “thought outside of the box. He made people think about fears, anxiety and family problems back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when it wasn’t cool.”
At the memorial, Boland's 6-year-old daughter Michelle placed roses under a picture of Sendak, and left him a note.
“I wish he can be alive,” the letter read, “and never be dead.”
On campus, the school's library remains decorated with the iconic images from Sendak's 1963 children's book, and the main classroom structure is called the "Max Building" for the lonely 9-year-old adventurer in the author's most well-known book, Principal Ying Leung said.
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Images of two monsters hovering over Max decorate Leung's office.
"Our mantra is kind of: We're the wild things," Leung said.
On Tuesday, after standardized testing ended, Leung announced over the school intercom that Sendak had died.
"I said, 'We need to celebrate his life,'" Leung said. "The teachers explained what's 'passed away.'"
Leung said he's been told the school may not use the images from the book in promotional materials because it doesn't have the rights to them. But that doesn't stop the campus from relishing its special connection to Sendak.
The school has asked Sendak to visit the campus named in his honor several times, but never had any success in getting the author to come to North Hollywood from his home in Connecticut.
One of the dozens of new campuses built by Los Angeles Unified in recent years, the school opened in 2005. After a community input process, the school was named for Sendak. Other appellations considered were Lucille Ball and Henry Mancini.
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